GREEN NETWORKING
How an IT kit throwaway culture wastes valuable resources Building Britain’s appetite for repair By Askar Sheibani, CEO and Founder, Comtek
Facing the facts In recent months, there has been much talk about the failure to tackle the global volume of e-waste - an issue that has been around for decades. The Solving the E-waste Problem
(StEP) initiative recently warned that e-waste is expected to grow by 33 per cent over the next four years, a worrying rate of change, considering that technological innovation is only likely to accelerate. This simply proves that something
Askar Sheibani discusses the UK’s IT ‘throwaway culture’...
needs to change in how we approach e-waste, as current efforts are clearly not being effective enough. Furthermore, this situation is made
worse by the fact that dangerous e-waste is being dumped illegally in developing countries, where the lives of vulnerable people, often children, are at risk from the toxic fumes. Whilst there is no doubt that the
increasing volume of e-waste is a global issue, it is crucial for businesses in the UK to realise that the current throwaway culture is a contributing
factor that is escalating the problem. Indeed, creating a greener network
through repair will not only reduce the level of e-waste that exists, but it could offer a second lease of life for products that may otherwise have been illegally dumped in developing countries, putting lives at risk.
Rip-and-replace mentality Traditionally, organisations have been encouraged to think that the only way to ‘upgrade’ a network infrastructure was to rip out the old and replace it with new equipment. Tearing down an entire framework is
never going to be appealing or cheap for any company, however, manufacturers often offer little alternative. The sad fact of the matter is that
a rip-and-replace mentality means new product lines, new revenue and a healthier profit margin for manufacturers. Companies are further encouraged to tear down their network infrastructures
as manufacturers withdraw support for older products. With no reassurance that parts of the infrastructure can be serviced and repaired, companies are often forced to discard older equipment, regardless of its condition or productivity. Businesses must steer away from
thinking that a network overhaul is necessary, for fear that they will expose their network to all manner of future maintenance problems, as this is simply not the case. In fact, repairing rather than
replacing networking equipment can extend the life of legacy equipment by as much as four times the stated lifespan. Refurbished equipment can also
be fine-tuned to meet the specific requirements of the system and customer it’s destined for - bringing a new lease of life into legacy products, that can compete with the technology of newer products at a fraction of the cost. In addition to this, repair warranties
typically exceed those of new equipment, enabling organisations
Repairing technology is more efficient 12 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 3 2014
www.netcommseurope.com
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